Although the arrivals of the Queen and Barack Obama lifted the mood in the Republic, its bleak economic outlook cannot be ignored
As Barack Obama heaped praise on the Irish nation time and time again in his keynote speech at Dublin's College Green, a collective quip started up amid the gathered southern Irish journalists.
While the taoiseach looked on as the president seduced his adoring audience, reporters, broadcasters and commentators whispered to each other: "Enda [Kenny] should call the election now!"
It is less than three months since the people of the Republic went to the polls and put Kenny's Fine Gael and the Irish Labour party into power with one of the largest majorities in history.
An outsider might think it would be the height of madness to declare another election now but, given the feelgood factor swirling around the south at present, maybe it wouldn't be such a loopy idea after all.
Working and living in Dublin, and with the "outsider eye" of someone originally from Northern Ireland, it has been astonishing to witness the major events of the last month in the Republic.
Over those momentous seven days in May, the country has welcomed a Queen and a president, bade farewell to one of its most respected prime ministers ever and, in between, captured European rugby's most prestigious prize.
Walking about central Dublin after Obama and his entourage left early to escape that Icelandic ash cloud, listening to the giddy reaction of the public to that speech, conversing with barmen who had been to Cardiff last week to see Leinster's Heineken Cup triumph, you wondered whether there was still a recession gripping the nation.
One of the Irish government's main hopes from the two visits is that they will give tourism a major boost. Last year, one million fewer tourists visited Ireland than in the previous year ? the vast bulk of the stayaway holiday-makers being from the UK and the US.
The global pictures of the Queen and Prince Phillip disarming and charming the Irish public and the "money shot in Moneygall" of a US president downing a pint of Guinness will be used to persuade British and American travellers to come to the Republic in greater numbers.
In terms of British tourism, the overpowering message from the Queen's successful tour was that Anglophobia, if not fully dead in the Republic, is now confined to a tiny minority of recalcitrant republicans.
Their inability to mount any serious protests or bring large numbers out onto the streets during the royal couple's four-day visit is evidence of that. The genuinely warm reception the Queen received in Dublin's National Convention Centre or on the streets and in the markets of Cork City will in turn bolster the goodwill most British people feel towards the Irish and Ireland.
Throughout that week, both during the Queen's tour and the 24-hour whirlwind visit of the Obamas, Failte Ireland were never far away, hosting a series of lavish parties for the world's media, putting on a superb buffet (with the same menu the Queen was enjoying) and handing out freebie goodies including free Irish food recipes.
The Republic's national promotion bodies, like tourism and food, certainly do a good sell, and their efforts will be compounded by the positive stories emanating from Ireland after months and months of appallingly negative publicity.
More foreign visitors will follow, but the central question remains: will that be enough to lift the country out of the economic and fiscal mire it fell into after the Celtic Tiger boom went bust?
Just a few hours after Air Force One left Dublin and crossed the Irish Sea, there was a fascinating debate on RTE's Frontline programme, hosted by the excellent and erudite Irish broadcaster Pat Kenny.
The first half of the show looked towards the near future and what the Republic's options are to restore its national finances and try to pay back the multi-billion bailout loan to the global financial institutions.
One of the most interesting contributions came from a woman from the Economist Intelligence Unit, which carries out worldwide surveys of economies across the planet. Amid the euphoria of the royal and presidential visits, she reminded the panel and the audience that there still lurks the tip of an iceberg with the world "default" written on it.
Her point was that the huge debts Ireland already has run up (in part caused by the disgraceful, avaricious behaviour of the banks, including two that operate in Northern Ireland) are not sustainable. The country cannot afford to pay back the billions of euros it had to borrow from the IMF and the European central bank to keep public services running and pump cash into the toxic banking system.
In the end, she contended, the Irish government will have to default by any other name by 2013 rather than continue to force more financial pain on its citizens and further depress the economy. This has, in recent days, been dismissed by Kenny's minister of finance, Michael Noonan, although another minister in the government did speak out of turn last week and indicate that a bail was possibly on the cards.
At this point, it seems everyone loves the Irish ... at least in the Anglophone world, and especially in London and Washington.
Among the modern Republic's traditional friends in Paris or Berlin, however, there may be less goodwill. If the Economist Intelligence Unit assessment is correct and the Republic does default, the French ? and especially the Germans ? will be looking for some payback, possibly in the guise of Ireland's low corporation tax. No kind words from David Cameron, William Hague or Obama are likely to persuade the big EU players not to ask Ireland to pay some price for default.
Kenny had a good day out with the Obamas, and gave a rousing (if somewhat elongated) warm-up speech to the main act at College Green.
He knows there are darker days ahead, even if more American tour buses pull up at Moneygall's main street looking for Ollie Hayes' pub or more British holidaymakers take a trip to the Garden of Remembrance, avoiding the heroin addicts who use it as a shooting gallery, to see where the Queen made Anglo-Irish history last month.
There will be more cuts in the public sector, and more spats with his European partners in the months and years ahead.
In the meantime, the best he can do to sustain the current popularity of his coalition is to ensure that some of those who created the fiscal mire end up on trial. A few top bankers in handcuffs would be a sight that might bring more than 25,000 out onto Irish streets to celebrate.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/jun/01/ireland-face-reality-royal-presidential-visits
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